A New Zealand man said to be at the helm of one of the world's most prolific spam enterprises has agreed to pay fines totalling $92,715 (about US $63,400) after admitting his role in an operation that spewed billions of junk messages in recent years.
Lance Atkinson, 26, paid the paltry amount "because of his co-operation and …

Huh ?

Re:Pay spam get penis

Really? You can't see the harm of people like this and what they cost the industry in general? The amount companies (not just ISP's but any company which filters its email) spend just to combat the spam sent out so we don't spend half our working day wading through penis enlargement ads? You don't think it affects bandwidth, and particularly slows down our email systems just having to receive and process it?

Spammers should receive jail sentences and the profits from their spamming enterprises seized. I'm not sure how you'd achieve the second part of that but the fine he got takes the piss considering how much he has probably made from it.

Best punishment

These people should be forced to only use a P3 512MB RAM PC running a pirated and thoroughly infected copy of Windows ME, via a dialup link. And they'd HAVE to use it to, say, pick up access codes to that they can buy food - no escape. Their email address ought to be then subscribed to every spamlist going, so that that one important email with their food codes would be absolutely buried under the kind of crap they inflict on others. About a year of that will do, I think.

Failing that, hanging them by their balls so they swing freely is OK for me too. Provided you tie a serious weight to their ankles first.

I'm a gentle soul, really.. I just didn't have my first coffee yet :-)

comment bin

Come on, guys, you should know my line on Bubba-related prison-rape quips by now. Can't you be more creative/proportionate about what you'd like to have done to spammers, along the lines of upside-down-in-vat-of-warm-marmalade?

Right...

Right, here we are: the oceans are filling up with nasty jellyfish. For each spam served, they should be forced to capture, and register that capture with a government organ, one jellyfish, and then dispose of it in an environmentally sound way, e.g. by eating it.

creative/proportionate...

I agree, and sending a spam message is hardly a big crime and only worthy of a slap on the wrist. however a slap per email sent, now that would be proportionate to the crime, and i've got a design for an automated wrist slapping device, which when cranked up to deliver 2million would easily erode the perpetrators limbs down the the elbow...

Suitable punishment.

too small

So this 26 year old guy is going to pay the fine? Sounds like he can afford it and paying it isn't going to cause him any pain. If this is the case, then the fine isn't high enough.

The whole point about fining these people is to make it hurt,. to make it seen to be hurt, to act as a deterrent to other spammers. This is vitally important when you consider what percentage of email traffic on the internet is unsolicitied spam.

We have to put up with the crap and telco's around the world have to, in effect, have extra comms equipment and fibres to cope with the crap. The true cost to the ISPs because of selfish people like him and ultimately us, the subscriber is far greater than the amount he's been fined.

I say, the punishment should be a short term of imprisonment. A fine can be paid, and not cause any real hardship, lock him up and he will personally suffer and that's gauranteed.

That would act as a very real deterrent to other spammers.

We really have to start dealing with this problem seriously around the world.

It seems to me the judicial systems of countries around the world don't consider this offence as being serious enough to warrant a custodial sentence, persumably because no-one has come to any harm, we can after all just ignore the emails.

And yet, when it comes to the offence of hacking computers, that is serious enough to put people in jail.

Judiciaries around the world really need to get to grips with this problem and understand the true cost of it.

Penalties...

Hmm, a couple of options spring to mind. The first involves patience, persistence and a grapefruit spoon. The second involves microwaving them from the toes upwards 1 millimeter at a time over a period of several days.

Spammers Punishment

Why dont we just take convicted spammers out into the ocean (a foot every 10 emails seeing as we dont have enough space for further) and drop them there to swim back to shore? Making sure to tie a couple nice juicy steaks to their legs before dropping them off the boat.

Problem solved. The ones that make it put then in as defensive types in the NFL seeing that if they do that they probably worth keeping around in some fashion.

My favoured method

Ch-Click...HOCK! OOOOORRRRRAAAAYYYYY!

Ok, unlikely to happen I know. But another alternative has occurred to me that is quite viable:

Since these spams are punting sexual devices and it can be safely assumed that a significant proportion of these filthy emails are reaching email accounts operated by children, how about we make use of the political clout of the "think of the children" crowd to get these scumbags onto the Sex Offenders' register and charged with "grooming", "corrupting minors" offences and the like. Spammers = Paedophiles!

Then let them live with ruined lives, unemployable, nobody wanting them in their neighbourhood, banned from going within 5 miles of a school, their picture all over the media as a kiddy-fiddler, etc. Much better and more enduring than mere hanging, and in today's social climate, much more politically feasible!